Story Highlights

On Jan. 1, 2017, and for the first time ever, Wayne County began paying the cost of public transportation for its employees’ commute to and from work. On that day, just 56 of the County's 3,101 employees commuted to work using public transportation. Today, that number is 371 who have taken advantage of this benefit. That is an additional 315 fewer cars spewing pollution into the air, congesting our roads, deteriorating our pavement and fighting for costly downtown parking. And more revenue for public transportation.

Is this a good thing? The federal government thinks so. It created the incentive used by Wayne County to achieve this increase in the use of public transportation: An employee does not pay income tax on this employer-provided benefit. It's a tax-free benefit when provided by an employer, public or private, to its employees.

Providing this benefit is inexpensive. Few employees commute to work by public transportation. I wish it cost more. The more this employee benefit costs Wayne County, the more benefits we derive out of public transportation. And the good achieved outweighs its cost.

This benefit gives employees a boost to their salary in which they keep 100% of the benefit and saves the cost of gas and reduced maintenance for their car. Why not use this transportation benefit as a simple and effective strategy to get more money in employees’ pockets and derive the societal benefits from the increased use of public transportation? Seems like a no-brainer.

Many executive staff in organizations focus only on big projects. To get the big things right, you need to get the small ones right, too. This is one of our mantras in Wayne County. By setting the example of good government in all our varied activities, large and small, we create a culture more adept to solve our bigger problems, like finances and the jail project. This free use of public transportation is an example of getting a small thing right. A baseball game is often won with singles and doubles with nary a home run.

We hope other employers, public and private, will adopt their own similar program. If hundreds of employers provide this program to benefit their employees, how many additional cars during rush hour could we get off the road? How much could the quality of public transportation increase by the additional revenue? Over time, I think the single we hit with our program might turn into a double or triple for our region. As downtown Detroit, and hopefully our neighborhoods, continue their momentum, let's not ignore the smaller opportunities to contribute to the betterment of our region.